Month: March 2013

Blog is basically an informational website. Blog is the term derived from weblog. Blogging is about writing and updating the blog. Anyone with internet access can blog. Blogs are used by celebrities to interact with their fans. Blogs are also used by different companies to stay in touch with their customers. Articles in a blog are called posts. The posts are in reverse sequential order. The latest appears on top. Each post may have its own link which is known as permalink. Readers can also post comments in reply to posts. Writing in any other form than this is not blogging. Blogging has become a search engine optimization tool because updated content is increasingly indexed in search engines.

Blogging Characteristics

The most important feature of a blog is its genuine content. Blogging has no value if the content you post is not actually yours. The purpose of blogging is to inform or to augment the information about something, to entertain and to teach people. Blogging is a two way communication process. People comment on your posts and can also receive replies on their comments. They can even write their own blogs in response to your blogs. The blog is not restricted to a particular website. Your blogs can appear on social networking sites. Blogging for others rather than yourself can attract more people. Most people might not be interested in reading in personal diaries. Blogging doesn’t necessarily mean writing. Blogging may be in the form of images, audio, video or e-books.

Considerations for Blogging

There are legal issues to consider while you are blogging. You might end up in a law suit against you for plagiarism. You must be aware of the guidelines related to blogging and take steps to minimize your legal problems. A blogger must disclose any material relationship with an advertiser or brand. A manufacturer may give financial or non financial incentives to you for writing about their products. Relevance is an important factor in blogging. Your blog should be relevant to the audience you intend to target. Irrelevant posts will result in loss of audience. Time is crucial. If you don’t have the required time to update your blog then the purpose of blogging is not achieved. Flow of the blog is also important. A blog should be well organized.

What Blogging has to Offer?

Blogging is an effective and affordable advertisement medium for small businesses and start ups. You can reach a large number of consumers cost effectively. To write a blog you have to read and conduct researches. This improves your own learning. Blogging gives you the opportunity to be visible to people if you want to be an expert on a particular subject and you have a desire to become so. You can become a published author. Publishers are reluctant to take chances on new writers. If you are an established and well known blogger then you might well get a chance to become a published author. Blogging connects you to different people. You can even become friends with people who follow your blog.

Author Bio:

Maria Bennett is a regular guest blogger and graphic designer. She is working for Next Day Flyers an online printing company where you can order for 11 x 17 glossy posters and promote your business.

As you may already be aware the large UK Florist Interflora have been hit by a Google penalty, wiping out the search positions. Interflora have done a great job to cover the gaps left from the drop in organic search traffic, although it may never become clear how much impact the drop had. So what lessons can we learn from Interflora, how have they maintained their success despite the drop and why did they get the penalty in the first place?

Why Did Interflora Get The Penalty In The First Place?

Although it has not 100% been confirmed yet, it is believed that the penalty has been as a result of paying for links. Interflora have tried to get around the penalty by awarding people gifts offline when they blog about their products. Google do state that this is against their advertising policy and are fairly hot on things like this. Google pride themselves on delivering quality search results and although some results are questionable at times, they do have a web spam team dedicated to fighting low quality sites that rank high due to using unnatural techniques.

The reason that the alarm bells started ringing after Interflora had been hit was when bloggers started to tweet that they had been told to remove any links they have pointing to the Interflora site.

Dont Try to Cheat the System

Unfortunately, no matter how much you try you will not out smart Google. The Google Algorithm is constantly changing but the fundamental rules are there to be seen in black and white, you cannot pay for links. The act of giving gifts off line is just the same as paying someone in cash to link to your site.
The only way you can get quality links is by offering a good service and by creating quality content.

What Other Areas Of Marketing Should You Consider?

You may want to consider looking at other areas of marketing. One of the reasons why Interflora did not worry too much about the drop in organic positions is because they had already established their brand using offline material such as print material. Businesses like Interflora that offer gifts that are bought annually rely a lot of repeat customers. Having already got a postal address from the customer and with the person already being the customer you will expect a repeat purchase. This works well in industries such as travel insurance which is a very competitive market.

One area that Interflora do well is social media, this is another area that works well especially as people trust companies their friends have bought from before. Google are trying to get into the social media market with Google+ although at the moment their is not enough users to be essential. Promotional Products and Bags

A great way to market your business is for other people to do it for you. By producing promotional products such as promotional bags customers will put your brand in-front of people that are outside your business.

A quality web host plays a critical role in search engine optimization (SEO) results. For a website to rank highly in Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines, it has to have speedy servers. Webhosting can either make or break your online ventures. Without a proper and sustainable webhosting plan, you may well end up in the hands of quacks.

A reputable and high quality webhosting service provider will always ensure that your website is up and running 99.99% of the time which is crucial in SEO results. If your website is down when search engines want to index it, they will just skip it. Though the search engine will come back to your site, if your site continues to be down you are sending a red flag. It is a clear sign against the credibility of your site which will lead to lower ranking. A good webhosting provider has high quality server machines that ensure that your website is online most of the time. This will give your site more value to search engines.

Your site should also load pages in seconds; if you have a slow loading site, then you will have a problem with search engines. Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines rank a page in terms of user experience, and a good site should load pages very fast. If a site takes a century to load, it irritates the visitors who opt for other sites. The search engines, then, do not want to put such pages at the top of their result pages since the sites at the top of a page should be the ones that provide the best information quickly. You should also put your fabulous and quality content at the top of the page so that it can be catalogued by search engines. Also, if your site has many graphics, which can slow the loading process, it is of utmost importance to optimize them.

The location of your website is also crucial in SEO results. Good webhosting providers are aware of this fact and take the necessary measures to ensure that this issue is addressed appropriately. For instance, if you want to rank highly in a certain country, then you should be seen to be hosted in that country. Your webhosting provider should provide credible and efficient information that will help in ranking your site accordingly. Regardless of where your service provider is located, it should be in a position to employ expertise and strategize for your site’s appropriate location.

When search engines start ranking your site which is being hosted on a quality hosting service provider, they will also give priority to your blogs and contents. This helps you to achieve a competitive edge in the market over those who use cheap and low quality hosting services.

Imagine your site ranking page one on Google. This will mean that the chances of receiving commercially viable online visits are high.

Quality webhosting plays a pivotal role in making your site successful and increasing traffic since most people, experts and marketers included, use search engine indexes to analyze the credibility of your products and services. You should make sure that your site is always up to date, contains fresh content, is available for search engines and, more importantly, is optimized for search engines.

If you want to expand and grow your business in the online platform, you have to invest wisely to secure the services of a proficient webhosting service provider. It might cost you hundreds of dollars, but it is a worth investment in the long run.

Author Bio

This article is the contribution of Leo Preston who describes here the necessity of web hosting for SEO result. She is a technology blogger and already wrote about web design, iPage guide, web hosting etc.

Linux or Windows Hosting – What You Should Consider Before Choosing One

You already know that you can talk to the entire world through the Internet, and many types of people use many different websites to entertain and inform themselves. Each person has their own type of service, application and even search engines. There are some who choose Google Chrome while others may prefer Firefox or Internet Explorer instead.

The issue that is raised here is related to the idea of compatibility. It’s really important to understand that if you create a website for your business, you need to make sure that your particular website is compatible with as many programs and applications as possible. Is Linux a great choice when it comes to the hosting platform or should people use Windows instead?

The answer to this question really depends on the needs of the ones that raise the question. Basically, the language in which the code is written and the database where the data is stored are the main differences between the two names above. In addition, the operating system that has been used for the hosting domain will not have any effect on the one that the user has at home. This is strictly a back office aspect that website owners need to have considered.

An issue that should be illustrated here is the idea of security. There are companies that argue the fact that Linux is more powerful when it comes to handling hacker attacks, while Windows is much more vulnerable.. Research of security is up to the person choosing the right server for them, as both Windows and Linux have different strengths and weaknesses.

It’s really important how the information is secured and does not necessarily have to do with the server OS chosen. There are examples of Linux hosting platforms that have been attacked as well because hackers have used Linux in their attack and have knowledge on how to infiltrate the system.

Another aspect to think about is the idea of accessibility. Believe it or not, Windows is a more popular operating system, therefore there are more applications available for Windows than for Linux since that’s the system application creators know about and use. It might be an issue of opinion, but there are many examples in which programs developed for Windows didn’t work on Linux. This is another issue to think about when it comes to choosing an operating system.

Furthermore, there isn’t any real proof that one is easier to use than the other one when it comes to accessibility and user-friendliness. Both of them have proven themselves worthy of the attention that hosting companies offered over the years because they delivered a high quality service.

The web editor is something that you should be thinking about when it comes to the choice that you need to make when it comes to server OS. This is because some web editors work splendid with a certain operating system while others are not that compatible. It’s really something that you need to think ahead about as it can make all the difference in the world when the design company creates your website.

In conclusion, it doesn’t really matter which server type you choose as long as you know what you’re looking for in the end. There are some differences between how each of the operating systems, but neither Linux nor Windows reigns supreme just yet. It might be just like Samsung and Apple, Mercedes and Audi – here are some differences, but the service is the same in the core.

With all these said, details make all the difference in the world, so you need to see how these environments have helped other companies. Having a little research done can turn your head in the right direction. The role of testimonials and feedback from others is to prove that something was good or of poor quality.

Author Bio:

This article is about Linux and window hosting, where writer Leo Preston elaborates, which server is better and what factor should consider before choosing one. She express her gratitude’s Kate’s Best Web Hosting for their ideas.